I reccomend to read on Lloyd Godson and his guiness records about living in incredible small underwater habitats with algea air recycling.

A interesting theme to create a complete biosphehre in a small living space bubble – i had a project for a submarine voyage in a 370 ton submarine yacht, Jules Verne style, sponsored by a canadian TV chain, with Lloyd a couple of years ago.

The maker of a new AIP engine would sponsor the project to promote the engine, the TV chain would be secondary sponsor creating a TV series with Lloyd as host.

Unfortunatly the sponsorship did not materialize and we could not go to “project implementation phase” .

Submarine living in independent biospheres is definitly not a living style for the aveage seasteader – but the pioneers doing it (for weeks at least) are already among us. Smog in mayor cities may bring us very soon no only to wear filter masks in the streets but to think about creating our own athmosphere in our apartments just as we drink safe water out of a bottle – pioneer work with algea tanks will be very apreciated.

elspru, your pictures on facebook are great – it shows clearly that the “technical effort” to create life support in a living space bubble is surpisingly low if you go the natural way – great job !

Ever hear of Alon Bodner? He’s an israeli who found a simple answer to the oxygen dilemma when submerged beneath snorkle depth. He developed a technology to free the breathable atmosphere that is present in water (1.5 – 2.5%) of which about a third is oxygen. He uses a centrifuge to lower the pressure, which releases the air from the water. Check out his website if you’re interested. I’m planning on getting one of these units for the sub as a back-up or failsafe.

Ever hear of Alon Bodner? He’s an israeli who found a simple answer to the oxygen dilemma when submerged beneath snorkle depth. He developed a technology to free the breathable atmosphere that is present in water (1.5 – 2.5%) of which about a third is oxygen. He uses a centrifuge to lower the pressure, which releases the air from the water. Check out his website if you’re interested. I’m planning on getting one of these units for the sub as a back-up or failsafe.

Your link shot me to a discussion about whether steam was atmosphere or just the gassification of water (therefore not breathable). I never said that we should make steam. The way the technology Bodner invented works is not a chemical reaction (like splitting the Hydrogen and Oxygen from each other).

Water contains diffused atmosphere (breathable air, not pure oxygen which would be poisonous). The more pressure the water is under, the more atmosphere it can contain. By artificially lowering the pressure of the water (through a centrifuge), the atmosphere is released and can be siphoned off. The water can simply be returned to the body of water it was drawn from.

I’ve often wondered if this could be a subsystem of an OTEC power generator, but Bodner’s technology stands on it’s own merit.

Your link shot me to a discussion about whether steam was atmosphere or just the gassification of water (therefore not breathable). I never said that we should make steam. The way the technology Bodner invented works is not a chemical reaction (like splitting the Hydrogen and Oxygen from each other).

Water contains diffused atmosphere (breathable air, not pure oxygen which would be poisonous). The more pressure the water is under, the more atmosphere it can contain. By artificially lowering the pressure of the water (through a centrifuge), the atmosphere is released and can be siphoned off. The water can simply be returned to the body of water it was drawn from.

I’ve often wondered if this could be a subsystem of an OTEC power generator, but Bodner’s technology stands on it’s own merit.

Live Well!

-Jason

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I was thinking that this kind of system would have most application in the deeper parts of the ocean,

since the water is already under pressure, and simply taking any and letting it naturally expand under 1ATM will produce oxygen.

Though there may be other gases there as well, and I’m not sure how evenly mixed the oxygen in the ocean is.

Having an aquarium is the most reliable method in terms of having safe and well filtered air,

especially consider the ease with which you can check the health of your life-support system

if the plants are growing healthy and strong,

then your air is quite likely doing well.

I’ve done some chatting on the aquarium forums,

seems like I got a lot more equipment than I needed.

actually it seems like the heater and water-filter were extraneous.

so the only electrical parts necessary are the lights and aerator.

which only need to be used in the daytime,

which is 28+3 watts, so about 32 watts.

my aerator cost me $32 but it’s twice the power I need,

some made-in-china LED manufacturers contacted me saying they have cheaper grow lights,

I think the algae thing is pretty cool but am always seeking contingency plans which don’t leave me totally dependant on living organisms.

That in mind, there are some interesting technologies available to you. Liquid nitrogen can be manufactured using a heat exchanger(car radiator) to wick heat away from a compressed air cylinder. Repeat expansion and compression of this gas can eventually boot strap it’s way to liquid temperatures. You can blow your cold gas on to the hose/pipe carrying it to the nozzle and you get a regenerative effect where the gases own expansion is pre-cooling the gas in the process of being expanded.

Do a search for “DIY liquid nitrogen” and you’ll get some hits. This same liquid nitrogen can be used to condense pure oxygen through a device that resembles a still. “DIY liquid oxygen”

It stands to reason that you could use these two liquids to cryogenically freeze carbon dioxide out of the air. A cryogenic rebreather.

This of course is all absurdly dangerous, much more so than the risk of suffocation from lack of algae. That said, I’m curious how much Co2 would collect on a car radiator which had liquid nitrogen pumped through it. Would some of this snow actually be oxygen? Could the process be used as a form of fractional crystalation?

How fast would you die from the evaporating nitrogen poisoning your atmosphere?

Nitrogen could thin your atmosphere enough to cause a situation like CO poisoning… Not enough Oxygen is more lethal than too much…

Making dry ice is relatively simple. It takes 3 stage compression and cooling, with rapid expansion into a chamber, for it to ‘snow’… The CO2 content of the gases from a Methane digester is high enough to make it feasible and bricks of dry ice can be used for refridgeration, in an old-style ice-box, if the atmospere is vented enough to prevent suffocation…

I think the algae thing is pretty cool but am always seeking contingency plans which don’t leave me totally dependant on living organisms.

are you saying you’d prefer to relly on mechanical organisms that have no way of healing or reproducing?

J.L. wrote:

Nitrogen could thin your atmosphere enough to cause a situation like CO poisoning… Not enough Oxygen is more lethal than too much…

Making dry ice is relatively simple. It takes 3 stage compression and cooling, with rapid expansion into a chamber, for it to ‘snow’… The CO2 content of the gases from a Methane digester is high enough to make it feasible and bricks of dry ice can be used for refridgeration, in an old-style ice-box, if the atmospere is vented enough to prevent suffocation…